Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Logline Critique Round 1 #14

TITLE: Amadine
GENRE: MG Fantasy

Determined to regain her father’s kingdom, Amadine travels a road filled with pirates, kidnappers, and, perhaps most terrifying, teenage girls. She discovers there is more to knowing who you are than just knowing your last name.

11 comments:

I was with you until the teenage girls. Seeing that, I looked up to see if the MC was a boy. She isn't, which is fine, but I had to wonder why teenage girls were terrifying. The second sentence seems detached from the first, since I'm not sure how her last name and who she is ties in with the first.

However, I'm still learning how to write loglines myself, so take what I say with a grain (or bucket) of salt.

I agree with Martha. I think what trips me up the most about the "teenage girls" part is that at the mention of a kingdom, I pictured fairy tale landscape with a less-than-modern backdrop, and teenage girls don't seem to fit. It was a bit jarring.

I really like the last sentence! I would suggest finding a way to reword so it connects to the first one, though. Standing on its own, it feels like a fragment of an idea.

Not clear is this is humorous or scary. Is she nearly killed by pirates and kidnapers or is she tickled by pirates and teased by teenage girls? Or something else. I think you need to spell this out.

I'd remove this sentence: She discovers there is more to knowing who you are than just knowing your last name, which goes in a query letter. Instead, put in this sentence what the risks are if she fails? Death? Tar and feathering? Something else?

Personally, I liked the juxtaposition of the pirates, kidnappers and teenage girls. I think you've got the goal and the stakes of failing to regain her father's kingdom, but nothing personal about Amandine that explains her reasons for wanting it. (Beyond the basic: who doesn't want a kingdom?) Maybe the matter rests in Amandine's personality and not some outside force.

To use a familiar example, in Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is the rightful king of Gondor, but seems more afraid of his own weakness in face of the job, than all the orcs, Dark Lord Sauron's and traitorous wizards that would try and stop him. Just something to think about.

Maybe Amandine can't bear the thought of failing her father. Or, maybe she is searching for her own identity in the quest. The line about knowing who she is made me think the stakes are internal (like Aragorn's) as much as external.

I'm going to have to second what most of the folks here have already said--the part about the 'teenage girls' had me baffled . . .

The second sentence also doesn't seem to follow from the first, although I think I might have a glimmer of what you're getting at.

Does the fact that Amadine is going to regain her father's kingdom mean she's just recently found out who she is--i.e. what her last name is, and that having that name means she's the heir?

If that's the case, it looks like you need to find a way to make this clearer, and also to show how acquiring the deeper 'self-knowledge' that's even more important than her name and title could be the result of tackling the challenges she faces.

This is the best MG logline I've read. We know the problem in the first few words and we know her enemies. However, the last sentence dropped me out of the pitch. Inner knowledge and retrospection is too obviously more significant than her name. We need better philosophy24a to keep us interested.

I think you haven't taken this far enough. She sets out to regain her father's kingdom and learns about herself along the way. DOes she regain her father's kingdom? Who does she have to take it from? What does she do to regain it?